Architects of Ancient Arabia

#Architects of Ancient Arabia

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A region in Saudi Arabia’s vast west, a land of stunning beauty that was once a thriving crossroads. 2,000 years ago an advanced civilization called The Nabataeans curved these sandstone tombs. Approximately hundreds of them, nearly many over five stories tall are spread over ten square kilometres, remains of an ancient city called Hegra.

As early Maya city-states were on the rise in the america’s and the Han dynasty was building the silk road outward from China, here in Alula 2000 years ago, the Nabataeans built Hegra to help command one of the ancient world’s most lucrative trade networks carrying incense and spices from Arabia to Egypt, Rome and beyond.

Over 500 years before the Nabataeans, the Bibical city of Dadaan flourished. Its statues have clear Greek and Egyptian influences and its languages were one of the modern Arabic’s ancient ancestors. But scattered among these known sites, archaeologists are discovering more here. Traces of civilization, more ancient than most ever imagined.

There are hundreds of shapes, more likely to be triangle, rectangle or even circle pendants. These structures are locally called “Mustatil”. Some of them stretched the lengths of five football fields with over 12 thousand tons of rocks, nearly twice the weight of Eiffel tower. It estimated over 21,000 are spread over Alula. Who built these structures and for what purpose and when?

The aerial survey is a part of much larger investigation being laid by the Royal Commission of Alula, a Saudi 2030 vision inspired organization. Saudi specialists are joined by international teams of archaeologists.

Arabia lies to the south of one of the richest archaeological regions on earth, the Fertile Crescent.  Around 10,000 years ago people here began to farm and domesticate animals like cattle. This era, the Neolithic led to what we now call the birth of civilization. Most well-known ancient structures like the Pyramids and Stonehenge came thousands of years later. To the south of the Fertile Crescent the harsh Arabian Desert was thought to play no part in the modern civilization.

 Alula’s old town, a traditional mud brick village with walls dating back to the 13^th century. Today work is underway to preserve old town and make it part of Alula’s wealth of heritage. Old town dates back centuries but how far back to Alula’s other ancient treasures?  To know the answer we might need to excavate the structures….

To test the theory that the Mostatils are Alula’s most ancient structures, archaeologist Wael Abu Azizeh leads the excavation team. The Mostatils outer walls seem to enclose a large inner courtyard. Perhaps a space for social gathering.

However, the team begins to carefully excavate the ground directly below the outcrop. Slowly what at first appears to be loose piles of rock begins to reveal a complex labyrinth of chambers. Then after weeks of meticulous work, excavators discovered ancient charcoal. The evidence is beginning to suggest that the Mostatils were served a ceremonial purpose. The gets to work even more swiftly. This time their perseverance pays off. The first vines were animal bones. And then human bones.  It’s now clear that among those monuments of Mostatils are tombs. The grave has given us a radio carbon date of 3,900 BC, which is about 6,000 years old. These bones may be evidence of a never-before-seen chapter in human history.

Mostatils excavations were emerging new finds. They found a horn of a domestic cow and it turns to be only the beginning. Over several weeks, the team slowly uncovers more and more. Saeed Al Amari makes the key discovery. The team identifies dozens of skull parts including over 80 horns from multiple species of animals. Saeed Al Amari noticed the bones arranged in an organized way. Discovered animals were mostly goat, gazelle and most exceptional domestic animals. It’s the first time cattle have ever been discovered in Alula.

6,000 years ago, a few thousand years after the emergence of farming, civilizations in the Fertile Crescent were building large-scale structures.

 

Archaeologist Maria Guanine is a rock art expert. She researched the nearby carvings believed to be amongst the most ancient in Alula. She and her team wait until sunset for better lighting conditions and later on what she found is stunning. The controllable light reveals primitive images of hunters surrounding prey, long horned ibex, lions on the prowl and something unexpected, cattle. Today Alula is far too arid to support cattle. So what are they doing in the rock art? According to Maria, the engravings were likely made during a period when Alula enjoyed a much wetter climate, seven to eight thousand years ago. What noticeable in the rock arts is that all cattle there was having a stripes in the middle. Maria Guanine interprets these stripes as marls of ownership. A time stamp for a crucial transition in human history, from hunting to herding.

Seven to Eight thousand years ago, cattle herding was confined to the Fertile Crescent and a few isolated pockets of the world. But this evidence suggests that some of history’s first cattle herders left their mark here, in Alula.